AB De Villiers signs up for Pakistan Super League 2019

Former South African ace batsman AB De Villiers is set to part of upcoming PSL Player draft after agreeing to participate in next year’s Pakistan Super League.

De Villiers made a formal announcement through a video message that he has signed with Pakistan T20 League for the coming season. He said that he was excited to play in Pakistan’s premier T20 competition that will be played in February next year. Pakistan Super League has become one of prominent T20 competition due to a large fan base. De Villiers said that he did see a few games and really was impressed with the level of cricket played in the competition.

AB De Villiers has been in the news due to an exodus from international cricket in Jan 2016 and then deciding to make a return to the side in December 2017. The premier batsman will miss big series against England citing reasons that he needed some time to come back to playing international cricket. Many Cricket Pundits criticized him for this move and stated that it was important De Villiers must clearly state his future goals to Cricket South Africa. He helped South Africa produce impressive back-to-back series victories over India and Australia.

He decided to call it a day from Test series after South Africa’s series win against Australia at home. The right-handed batsman expressed his desire to play for South Africa in 2019 Cricket World Cup but then making a shocking announcement to quit international cricket.

In a career spanning almost 14 years, De Villiers was a standout player for South Africa across all three formats. In the T20 format, De Villiers has scored almost 6649 runs with three centuries to his name. He also scored 45 half-centuries in the format.

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman, Ehsan Mani said that he was excited by the news of AB De Villiers signing for Pakistan’s premier T20 competition. He stated that De Villiers is one of the greatest players of the modern era and would add big value to the league in terms of its global viewership.